For the journalist and writer Xavi Casinos (Barcelona, 1963), walking through Barcelona is an opportunity to discover the secrets hidden in its streets. What is anodyne to all those who are not too concerned with history, for Casinos, also a collaborator at The New Barcelona Post, serves to open an investigation. If he sees something that catches his attention, like a sculpture he can't place in time or an engraving that is where it shouldn't be, he photographs it and goes home to clear up doubts. Accompanied by a good library and an archive of clippings, where he also discovers other mysteries of the city, he ends up finding an answer, understanding what was behind that object lost in the urban fabric, often forgotten.
He doesn't always find a good story, but the times he does, he has material for his column Barcelona Secreta in La Vanguardia, which he has been publishing weekly for eight years. When he has enough, he compiles them into a book, and he already has three. The latest, Barcelona Secreta. Volum III (Viena Edicions), collects 60 secrets revealed by Casinos, in which he seeks a balance of protagonist themes and represented districts, as well as vestiges that still survive, discarding what has already disappeared. "I always try to make sure they are in public spaces or accessible, so people can see that they exist and can touch them," he explains in an interview with The New Barcelona Post.
Ciutat Vella is the district that appears most in Casinos' Barcelona Secreta, followed by Eixample, Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, and Sants-Montjuïc. Les Corts, Sant Andreu, and Nou Barris are a bit more resistant. The journalist does not consider expanding the focus beyond the Catalan capital, although he has crossed its borders on occasion, going to the old monastery of Montsió in Esplugues de Llobregat, to see its cloister, previously located in Portal de l'Àngel and Rambla Catalunya, or to an industrial warehouse of Prosegur in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, where the Gothic courtyard of the old Casa Gralla in Barcelona is located. In terms of time, Casinos goes from a stone in Tibidabo that was used for ancestral rituals to a Cobi sculpted in a renovation of Palau Güell or the self-portrait Josep Maria Subirachs made in the Sagrada Família.
Casinos always seeks a balance of protagonist themes and represented districts, as well as vestiges that still survive, discarding what has already disappearedAfter so many years and secrets, Casinos is still finding new stories. "More than two thousand years give a lot," he remarks. In his new book, he focuses on places that often go unnoticed, even though one walks past them daily. Discover the past ofthe statue that crowns the fountain in Plaça de Sants; the cause of there being aPlaza del Diamantsurrounded by streets with names of precious stones; the meaning of the letters ZPthat can be found in Montjuïc, and the history ofa Romanesque window that survives on Call Street. It even puts on the mapthe shortest street in Barcelona. It is called Anisadeta and is next to the Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar.
For those who don't believe that there are details of the city that escape them, the Barcelona writer focuses on the most overlooked lamppost in the city. It is at the upper end of La Rambla and its art-déco goes completely unnoticed by the thousands of tourists who immerse themselves in the busiest street of the Catalan capital. Also for the Barcelonians who frequent it from time to time. Designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch, it was going to be in Plaza Catalunya accompanied by seven more, but cuts and haste condemned it to be the only one and to be relocated not far away.
Some of Casinos' secrets are a little harder to discover. These are those that are hidden in private properties and are not within reach of any astute passerby. There he draws on the newspaper archive, which he feeds with his visits to the Sant Antoni market, where it is rare for him not to find an old magazine or book that reveals some story to him. The city has unknown places such as a crypt in the Hotel Oriente, which before hosting guests had been a convent and a religious school, or a toilet in the cathedral bell tower, conceived to help the person in charge of ringing the bells, who otherwise would have to spend all day going up and down when nature called.
The journalist also delves into other disciplines beyond history, such as geology, pointing out that the Pasaje de les Manufactures, between Trafalgar and Sant Pere més alt streets, is the most evident vestige of the Barcelona step, a slope that divides the plain of Barcelona from Trinitat to Plaza Universitat. He also dares with astrology, recalling the old observatory that the University of Barcelona (UB) had in its historic campus.
The past, sometimes, serves to understand the present. This is demonstrated by Casinos in Barcelona Secreta. Volum III with the bone of Calderón de la Barca. Preserved in the museum of the Institut del Teatre, it must serve for a group of researchers to confirm if the remains of the playwright that are being sought in a church in Madrid have the same DNA, in case they find them.
Rarely does a follower of Xavi Casinos' Barcelona Secreta send him a story. "In all these years, no more than ten people have done so," he states. This third volume includes one sent to him by a neighbor from Sants. It is about a half-finished bell tower that can only be seen from some balconies on Sants street, at the height of the Badal metro stop. Although the reader thought there was some mystery behind it, such as it having been destroyed in a Civil War bombing, it simply remains that way because it was never finished.
The 1929 International Exposition, a surprise
After reviewing the traces left in Barcelona, Casinos has been surprised by a historical episode he believes is undervalued. "The 1929 International Exposition has been a great discovery. The 98 one is always talked about, but I have realized that the transformation Barcelona experienced thanks to the 29 one is impressive and equivalent at the time, making allowances, to that of the Olympic Games," he reasons. The metro, the urbanization of Montjuïc, and the monumentalization of Plaza Catalunya are examples of that change the city experienced.
In Barcelona Secreta. Volum III, some of these stories appear, such as the disappeared escalators that were designed to make the ascent to Montjuïc easier and the Press House that was set up for international journalists, designed by the son of Lluís Domènech i Montaner and with clear reminiscences of the Hospital de Sant Pau.